Rumble!
"Oh my god."
"How spectacular."
"What did you do?"
Above the Angel Nebula, the planets were all staring blankly at the sight before them. A planet had suddenly dropped out of the void, and during its fall, an intense display of internal competition had begun to unfold.
Sacred Keisha looked at Lake beside her, who seemed to have anticipated this long ago, and asked curiously, "What exactly did you say to Malekith?"
Lake shrugged.
What had he said?
A lot.
But...
Malekith was the one who had done it. It had nothing to do with him. In fact, Lake had never made Malekith any promise. Malekith had merely decided that he had.
The matter was quite simple.
Lake had told Malekith that he would die—and that if he fell into Odin's hands, he would die horribly. No one could change his fate.
But...
Malekith could do one last thing when he was about to make his exit.
He could burn his own life to forcibly activate the Aether, whose power was being suppressed by the World Tree Universe—in other words, the Infinity Stones.
He could use his life and even his soul as the price to exchange for the World Tree loosening its suppression of the Reality Stone's power, even if only for a few seconds.
The fundamental law of the World Tree Universe was equivalent exchange.
As long as you could pay the price, the World Tree dared to grant your wish.
Thus, the World Tree granted Malekith this exchange. Then, during that brief interval of burning freedom, Malekith used the last remnants of his consciousness to issue a request to the fully unleashed Reality Stone—one that even reality itself found difficult to refuse.
Assimilate the Dark Elf kingdom and make it fall from the World Tree.
If